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I'd rather cut my hand off than working on Ubuntu's development. I would like to see Ubuntu and Canonical fail not because I think it is too mainstream, but because it falsifies the purpose of a free operating system in the interest of making money with it.
Their intent to attract new developers is not beneficial to Linux and is just an expression of the strive for more profit.

I woud bet that in some years Ubuntu is no longer a Linux Distrubtion like Debian or Arch. I bet that it will be still based on Linux but imcompatible to rest of the GNU/Linux world (imcompatible from ubuntu to other distrubtions and not from upstream Linux to Ubuntu), like OS X and *BSD.

They definitely seem to be pushing towards becoming their own self-branded operating system. I'm thinking they aim to become something along the lines of Android minus the upstream contributions (has Canonical ever contributed anything upstream?)

They definitely seem to be pushing towards becoming their own self-branded operating system. I'm thinking they aim to become something along the lines of Android minus the upstream contributions (has Canonical ever contributed anything upstream?)

Yes. Yes they have. Just because they don't commit as much as Red Hat doesn't mean they're not contributing. If nothing else, look at what they've done to popularize Linux on the desktop. If that's not a contribution, I don't understand English.

I'd rather cut my hand off than working on Ubuntu's development. I would like to see Ubuntu and Canonical fail not because I think it is too mainstream, but because it falsifies the purpose of a free operating system in the interest of making money with it.
Their intent to attract new developers is not beneficial to Linux and is just an expression of the strive for more profit.

Methinks thou dost protest too strongly. You're a brainless hipster who doesn't like Ubuntu because it's not obscure. By your logic, you should also want to see Red Hat fail.

And how is wanting to attract new developers to Linux not benefiting Linux? Is it because Canonical is the one wanting to do the attracting? That's petty. I award you a box of Fail.

"Ubuntu Tries To Attract New Developers"
And yet they don't contribute upstream.

False. They contribute packaging fixes back to Debian. David Henningsson contribute a lot to the audio stack since Ubuntu has a large sample size and every HDA device needs its own hacks. I could go on, but I'm not going to waste more time on this "they don't contribute upstream" idea, since you'll probably just keep repeating it anyway.

False. They contribute packaging fixes back to Debian. David Henningsson contribute a lot to the audio stack since Ubuntu has a large sample size and every HDA device needs its own hacks. I could go on, but I'm not going to waste more time on this "they don't contribute upstream" idea, since you'll probably just keep repeating it anyway.

It's not me who makes these claims. It's people who know what they're talking about. Like Greg KH:

If the only gripes against PA are that the latency is too high (on some hardware? definitely not mine) and it adds an unnecessary layer to hardware mixing, it's doing quite well -- considering the very grave problems presented by every other solution, including any totally new solution, which would just cause a re-hashing of all the upheaval and arguments that occur every time a new audio solution is presented for Linux. It's time to stop running and start sticking to our guns. PulseAudio has plenty of bullets left.

While Ubuntu is not my personal cup of tea and as such I have no interest in actually using it I am thankful for it's existance as it has indeed improved Linux desktop share and has become the closest thing to a 'Linux for the mainstream' solution.

Also barring the existance of a 'linux powered steam-box project' I'd wager a company like Valve would never had targeted Linux for Steam if it haven't been for a mainstream desktop end-user oriented distro like Ubuntu, no matter if Microsoft was threatening to eat their lunch or not.

Of course the downside with an emerging 'standard' desktop distro is that it can cause incompabilities when software is targeted directly at a specific distro, particularly if that distro developes 'non-standard' subsystems which are hard to support elsewhere unless you are willing to 'buy the whole farm'. The latter is certainly a risk as it seems Ubuntu is trying hard to have developers target their distro specifically rather than Linux distros in general.

Overall though I think Ubuntu has had a great positive effect on Linux on the desktop, and also that if they start overstepping boundaries there will be an appropriate reaction (like with the amazon search 'feature'). When all is said and done, vendor lock-in isn't really an option when it comes to open source systems.